Zounds! So this is what my ex-girlfriend meant when she said sex with me was akin to "carnal relations with an empty husk." Too much web porn! It's killing our libidos, lads, one frantically one-handed mouse click at a time.

So says a report from the University of Padua in Italy anyway, which purportedly discovered that randy gents with a penchant for hardcore sex on the Net were more likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction when preparing to perform the real deal themselves.

The study focused on late teens and men in their 20's, and the crux of its findings was that the ever-increasing and diversifying selection of online porn and porn experiences has actually led to a numbing of men's pleasure receptacles, specifically to the response of dopamine (the "reward" neurochemical).

Advertisement

By hammering on the reward button so often and with such a wide range of experiences, Internet porn effectively subdues or eliminates the physiological sense of reward that sex so wonderfully provides.

Ergo, when she's lying there naked waiting for you, you realize that the whole situation feels a bit numb, you get subconsciously scared, and then things stop working. Awkward!

Worse still, the study apparently found that "quitting" web porn created a whole host of withdrawal symptoms. Insomnia, flu-like symptoms—all of which, in my opinion, pale in comparison to the actual ED that sets it all off.